Becoming the Animal
by Sinestro
Summary: Beastboy's life after the Titans, as haunting memories threaten to consume his already fragile mind.


It's late as the lone figure slowly approaches the cliffs edge, the frost-coated grass crunching with each step.. Time matters not to the figure; it knows not what time is. It is dark, it's cold, and it has a purpose. That purpose however, like time, is unknown.

Its breath turns to mist in the air, clinging to the dark fur lining its jaw. The cold weather is a natural part of life, it's a constant. The cold emanating from the figure, however, is new and unnatural. The figure shakes before sitting, its tail sticking out behind it. Its chest heaves with each breath, as though it were in pain.

A flock of birds, ravens, erupt from the surrounding foliage, flying into the sky. The figure, a strong, powerful looking wolf, suddenly bares its teeth as unwanted memories try to surface. Images flash through the wolf's mind, most fleeting, others play through their entirety. Memories of a terrible battle, of bitter hatreds, and of a lost love.

An image of a tall copper skinned female with a fiery mane forms within the wolf's skull first. _Starfire_, a word that is suddenly given meaning within the wolf's brain and, for the moment, it knows what it is like to be human.

_She was the first, he could remember it now. They were all in their twenties and they were in their favorite pizza joint, celebrating a win over Plasmus. They were talking and joking, Star had just won the last slice and was about to bite into it when a flash of purple light struck her in the chest._

_Blackfire flew off as quickly as she had struck but Raven and he went after her. Cyborg had remained behind to administer first aid and call an ambulance. Robin just held her body, screaming for her to wake up. She didn't._

_They never caught Blackfire but were told she was publicly executed on Tameran. The Tameranians put her in a ship and sent it straight at the nearest star. Cyborg said she would have died before she came anywhere near it, bursting into flames._

The wolf winces from the memories, collapsing to the ground as the onslaught continues.

_Robin, surprisingly was next. Their leader, the proud leader got no honorable death. He didn't go down fighting, or saving anyone. He was just picked up on patrol by the Joker. The bastard took him back to his hideout to play a little 'game' as he put it._

_By the time Batman finally found him Robin was already dead. Joker said he'd heard about some Nazi experiment and wanted to try it out for himself. Said he hung him upside down stuck a hose down his throat and turned it on. The freak wanted to see if he'd explode._

_According to reports, the freak was laughing his ass off on his way to Arkham, saying that Batman should have seen his face before he popped, that he looked like a cartoon character. Joker was found dead in his cell the next morning, supposedly tripped and struck his temple on the bed post._

Whimpers escape the canine's mouth as it's forced to endure the memories.

_Cyborg, his best friend, partner in crime, and best man was after him. The meta-human prisons had gone through a mass breakout, some plan by Grodd or something. The League had its hands full trying to recapture them and was looking for any help it could get._

_Dr. Polaris had gone missing somewhere in California, and we were asked to look into it. It was just the three of them by then and they were eager to do anything we could to keep busy. He was hiding in some scrap yard, and they had finally managed to track him there._

_They hadn't stepped ten feet into the yard when Cyborg was lifted into the ear. An ear-splitting screech erupted from his body as the metal was torn and ripped from his frame, the flesh hanging down in mangled strips, dripping blood and oil. Raven had to hold him back as he screamed and attempted to run to his friend's aid._

The wolf scratches viciously at the ground, knowing what is to come next. But, like the pig at the slaughter house, it can do nothing to save itself from the coming pain.

_Raven, his friend for twenty-three years, lover for seventeen, and wife for eight, was slaughtered in their own home._

_The Titans had been disbanded for three years, neither of them had been willing to go on just the two of them. They had put on holo-rings and made new lives for themselves. He was just getting home from work when he smelled the blood. Running through the house, he finally found Raven, throat slashed and stomach gutted, lying on the floor._

_Kneeling in the blood and cradling his dead wife's form, a horrid noise made itself known. A small recorder had been left beside her body, and from it flowed the Brain's computerized, monotonous voice, repeating the same message over and over again. "You. Have. Failed."_

_Unable to face the grief of losing the person he cared for most, the last person he cared for, he had become the wolf, allowing its instincts to take over completely._

Something inside the wolf's mind snaps, allowing his bestial nature to regain control, surrendering itself, and becoming the animal. The wolf then stands and rears it's head back to gaze at the moon, and finally voices a howl of unadulterated desperation and grief.

Longing for it's lost pack, and for it's grey furred mate…


End file.
